


Lifeline

by leighwrites



Series: Reddie Oneshots [8]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Blood, F/M, M/M, MCD does not apply to Eddie or Stan, warning for sickness and slight loss of limb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 00:44:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19860748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leighwrites/pseuds/leighwrites
Summary: It’s a magnetic force that continues to pull them together, and just like with a magnet, the repelling side will create a negative reaction in the body, a push back of some kind. This push back is a sickness that cannot be cured by medicine, but only by connecting to the right match.





	Lifeline

People are not born incomplete. Soulmates are not two halves who come together to make a whole. They are two wholes drawn together who connect in a way they’re unable to with others. Soulmates are created over time, usually when something happens that leaves a mark so deep and so strong that the emotional and physical draw becomes spiritual. It’s a magnetic force that continues to pull them together, and just like with a magnet, the repelling side will create a negative reaction in the body, a push back of some kind. This push back is a sickness that cannot be cured by medicine, but only by connecting to the right match.

For Eddie it started with headaches when he was twelve. They were small at first, like the kind that build up over time with stress, and considering the fact he’d just defeated some otherworldly creature, it didn’t surprise him that he had a little stress. The headache had started the moment Richie left him at the bottom of his driveway and Eddie had stepped into his house. It was nothing that a couple of aspirin couldn’t handle, for a week at least. The headaches started to become more intense and more frequent now that his mother had him on house arrest for the rest of the summer. They were the kind that spread so much pain through his head and down his neck, that there were times Eddie had almost cried from the intensity of them.

Eddie dreaded going back to school when they were this bad, but there was absolutely no way in hell he was going to tell his mother about them. He would just have to endure the pain. Or so he thought. Being back at school had apparently eased the pain of the headaches. Eddie had just assumed that his mother was  _ that _ stressful, but if he’d paid attention, he would have noticed that it was around that time that Richie had started to get headaches too; constantly pulling off his glasses and rubbing the heel of his palm against his eye. He probably would have noticed that Ben was getting them too, constantly raising his hands to his head and rubbing at his temples, but Ben also had nosebleeds and spent a lot of time in the school bathroom stuffing paper towels up his nose to stop the bleeding.

And maybe Eddie would have noticed that whenever he was around Richie, the headaches stopped completely.

When Richie moved to L.A at fourteen, Eddie got the nosebleeds too; just like Ben. They’d started the day after Richie had left Derry. It was a heavy downpour of blood like he’d burst a vessel. His mother had dragged him to the hospital where the doctor had proceeded to tell him that this kind of thing happened quite commonly. Some people had heavy nosebleeds when the weather changed drastically from hot to cold. The problem with this was the weather hadn’t changed drastically, and Eddie had never suffered with a nosebleed before. It was one of the few things he’d never had in his entire life.

Eddie had ended up getting his nose cauterized to try and stop the nosebleeds when his mother had noticed them. It helped until until he was forced to move to New York when he was fifteen. The nosebleeds started up again with a vengeance, and the headaches were more intense than ever when they came. That was the year Eddie had ended up with glasses because he’d finally caved and told his mother about the blinding pain in his skull now that he’d fallen back into her grasp. They did very little to ease the headaches, but Eddie kept  _ that  _ information to himself.

At seventeen, Eddie met Adam. They both played for their highschool’s soccer team. Adam was loud with a foul mouth, and it sent a wave of familiarity crashing over Eddie, Adam’s presence fighting against a fog that had settled into his brain. Adam called him  _ Ed _ , and Eddie couldn’t help but think how wrong that name felt. That there should be an S tacked onto the end. Adam was annoyingly familiar with dark messy hair and soft blue eyes. It was like Adam had been conjured from a memory. The memory clawed at the fog. Adam looked familiar, yes, but Eddie knew there was something missing. Glasses. Adam needed glasses. His name needed to start with an R.

That’s when the violent coughing fits started, and Eddie had to hide bloodied palms from everyone around him.

Eddie suffered through his mysterious symptoms. They were easy enough to hide; a few aspirin here and there to help the headaches, and a packet of tissues constantly on his person for his nose and mouth. It was a routine that lasted him through the rest of highschool and college.

It wasn’t until his mother had introduced him to Myra when he was twenty-three that the cramps started. They were like a bad charley horse in his leg that he couldn’t shake and would knock him off his feet for weeks, not that Myra ever minded when that happened. Just like his mother she liked to take care of him, smothering her  _ poor little Eddiebear  _ whenever she could. Eddie didn’t -  _ couldn’t _ \- fight it. He was too sick. It was the first time his mother had ever been right about him being sick. He baffled doctors. His symptoms were not consistent with any one thing. It meant a lifetime of different medications for each different symptom, a lifetime of Myra bringing him pills in a morning and at night. 

When Myra brought up the topic of marriage Eddie didn’t resist. His mother was right. He was sick and needed someone to take care of him. Myra knew how. She  _ wanted  _ to. It made sense, at least to him. In his late twenties, shortly after marrying Myra, random bouts of vomiting started. Sometimes Eddie woke up in the middle of the night and rushed to the bathroom to empty the contents of his stomach until there was nothing else he could expel from his body. This meant more medication and Myra tightening her hold on him like a vice. Eddie worked, he was very successful at what he did, but he was away more than he was there because of what the people who worked for him called his mysterious illness.

Five years into his marriage, the chest pains started. His heart now beat at an irregular pace, and both he and his doctors were convinced that his body was shutting down for some reason, though neither of them knew how or why. Eddie knew deep down even though he couldn’t remember everything, a headache he’d suddenly had when he was twelve that kept coming back and leaving with intensity was the gateway symptom to whatever the hell was wrong with him. His current symptoms only seemed to get worse.

The day he received a call from Mike Hanlon Eddie remembered when his first symptom had struck. He remembered Richie had walked him home, that Richie had been unsure about leaving Eddie to go back into that house with his mother. IT had done this to him. IT had made him sick. At least, that was Eddie’s understanding. Eddie asked about the sickness but had said there was nothing. He hung up the call as confused as ever. If IT hadn’t caused this, what had?

It isn’t until he’s in the Chinese restaurant in Derry that Eddie realises he’s not the only one who is this sick. His own symptoms have lessened since entering his childhood town. Beverly walks with a limp like she has a bad cramp she can’t shake, supported by Stan who looks completely healthy. Mike and Bill are healthy too, but Ben coughs a lot into a tissue which he quickly stuffs into his pocket, and at one point during their meal, Richie raises a hand to his face to wipe away blood from his nose.

Eddie excuses himself, ducking outside to smoke. He’d decided long ago that if his body was already shutting down, this couldn’t hurt. Myra hated it, and often quipped at him whenever he reached for the box. Eddie looks down at his hand, at the golden ring circling his finger, and he feels the blood already dripping from his nose.

“You too huh?” Eddie looks up quickly, away from the ring, to Beverly who has a cigarette resting between her lips. “Did you get the headaches? When we were kids?”

“Yeah.” Eddie hands his lighter to Beverly as she struggles to find her own, looking out at the parking lot. “I got the nosebleeds too.”

“When you moved?” Beverly lights her cigarette and hands the lighter back to Eddie. “I got them when I went to live with my aunt.”

“No, I got them before that. I got them when - shit.”

“What?”

“I had them when Richie moved. It was the day after. After that I got sicker.”

“I wonder...” Beverly hums thoughtfully, blowing the smoke slowly from her mouth. “Do you think that’s why Richie’s nose was bleeding during dinner?”

Eddie shrugs, sinking back into the wall as he feels the cramp building up in his leg again. He hates this sickness. He hates that he doesn’t know what it is or where it comes from. “I don’t know, Bev. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay so like there’s this theory that, and bear with me, it’s like… there’s one or sometimes a few perfect fits for a person. It’s kind of like having soulmates. The theory suggests that people are just like magnets. If we meet the right match, we’re constantly drawn to them, but if we meet the  _ wrong _ match then our body repels it and it makes us sick.”

Eddie looks back down at the golden band on his finger, almost scowling at it. “I got sicker when I married Myra. Vomiting, chest pains… you really think this theory is on to something? How’d you even hear about it?”

“My friend Kay. She recognized my symptoms and looked them up… showed me the theory. The vomiting and chest pains started when I got married too.”

Beverly’s last sentence sticks with Eddie as she drops her finished cigarette to the ground and heads back inside. He knows she’s was always made for Ben, so if her theory is right, that’s why they’re sick. But him and Richie? He’s never stopped to consider that before. There’s never been anything between him and Richie. How could there be? They were  _ kids _ . Sure, Ben had been smitten as hell back then and it was painfully obvious and still was to this day, but Eddie had never thought of Richie like that. Had he?

Now that he thinks about it, he supposes there was  _ something _ even if it was small. He’d been fleetingly thinking about Richie the day the lepper had stumbled out of the porch under the Neibolt house. Fleeting, but apparently enough. Enough that when he’d crawled through the fence to get away from the clown he’d  _ heard  _ Richie, mocking. Sure Richie mocked everyone, but that had been different. That Richie had been  _ IT _ . And  _ IT _ knew what Eddie hadn’t all those years ago, what he’d been wondering about through his own marriage. He’d had the sexual confusion, the nagging voice in his head that told him maybe he liked both. He found men attractive but he was married to a woman.

And now that he’s  _ really  _ thinking about it, he can’t help but realise how  _ much  _ he finds men attractive. Sure, he was aware that Beverly had grown into an attractive woman, but that didn’t mean he was attracted  _ to  _ her. He thinks about how hard the sex was with Myra. How the coughing and vomiting was worse after it. That’s why he left her divorce papers after their argument about him coming back here. It wasn’t because of the argument. It was because deep down he knew - no he  _ knows _ \- that she isn’t for him. He isn’t for her. She’s not sick like he is. She hasn’t  _ met  _ her soulmate yet. But Eddie has - did - a long time ago.

_ Richie _ .

He glances over his shoulder towards the window. He can see the room Mike had reserved for them from here, and he sees Beverly in the archway talking to Richie. Richie looks uncomfortable with the topic as he shifts nervously on the spot like a teenager, and he’s reaching up to wipe blood from his face again. Richie stares at his own hand almost in wonder, and he’s thinking hard, Eddie can tell that from here. There’s no telltale twitch of Richie’s mouth like he’s about to spew a dumb joke. He looks…  _ serious _ .

Eddie sighs and heads back inside. He tries not to pay attention to the way Richie’s head tilts and follows him as he heads back into the room. Mike is rubbing Stan’s shoulder comfortingly, urging him to tell him about Patricia, to take his mind off what they’re going to do tomorrow. Stan smiles, a silent thank you, and tells Mike everything. Eddie focuses on Stan and his story, pushing the topic of people, magnets, and soulmates from his mind, pushes  _ Richie  _ from his mind. The logical side of him thinks Beverly’s theory is stupid. The sickness  _ had  _ to come from IT. They were the ones who’d had the most contact with IT and this was the result.

It  _ had  _ to be.

It isn’t until he’s back at the motel lying on his bed that Eddie finds himself thinking about it again. It doesn’t seem so stupid now. Shut away in his room, Eddie can feel the headache settling in like static. He can feel the blood flowing from his nose and down his cheek. He pushes himself up, grabs a tissue and wipes the blood away before heaving a sigh. He needs to know. He needs to be  _ sure _ . He grabs the key to his room and heads out, down the hall to the room he knows is Richie’s.

He raises a hand and knocks on the door firm enough for Richie to hear but quiet enough that everyone else doesn’t hear and come to investigate why Eddie is roaming the motel at one in the morning. Richie answers the door, shirtless in a pair of sweats; rubbing at his temples with his glasses perched on his head. He’s fighting off a headache, Eddie can tell by the furrow of his brow and the slight downturn on his mouth. He’s seen the expression on himself whenever he’s been locked away in his bathroom.

Richie lowers his glasses and registers that it’s Eddie standing there in his doorway. He doesn’t speak, moving to the side to let Eddie in. Richie, like Eddie, has been plagued with Beverly’s theory and he’d been close to doing what Eddie was doing now. He notices the headache has calmed now Eddie is here, and it pushes him to believe the theory even more. Richie remembers his encounter with IT when he was a kid. He remembers how IT showed up as a very dead Eddie. That hadn’t happened to anyone else.

Richie inhales, straightening the glasses on his face and meeting Eddie’s gaze. “You talked to Bev.” It’s not a question. It’s an acknowledgement. Eddie nods, looking away from him. “You think she’s right?”

Eddie shrugs, and Richie is aware of how Eddie is pushing a tooth against his lip, almost breaking the skin. “All I know is I’m sick… and I’ve been getting sicker as I grew up, when I got married...” Eddie finally looks at him again, confused greens watching Richie’s face. “And you are too. Whatever I have, you have and… Bev’s theory… it’s the only thing in over twenty years that’s made sense.”

Richie exhales, running a hand through his hair. It’s a nervous habit, one he hasn’t done since he was a kid. Somehow, Eddie brings out that nervous side in him. “So what are we supposed to do now?”

“I don’t know.” Eddie sounds frustrated, and Richie is almost certain he’s going to have to grab his wrists, stop him yanking on the blonde curls framing his face. “I just -  _ it went away _ . I entered Derry and the symptoms became less. I entered this room with a headache that made me want to curl into a ball and it  _ went away  _ and it… it makes me think she might be right, but the logical side of me -”

“Take a breath Eds-” The name falls easily from Richie’s mouth, like they haven’t been separated for over twenty years, and Richie both loves and hates it. Loves it because it’s  _ them _ and they can easily fall back into their dynamic. Hates is because it’s  _ too  _ easy, almost erasing the fact that they’ve been apart so long, that they’re practically strangers now. This isn’t  _ Eds _ , it’s Eddie. “-ddie. Eddie. Sorry. Habit. I know you hate it.”

Eddie sighs, taking a seat on the bed as the cramp creeps its way into his leg. He finds it interesting more than annoying. It’s interesting because his symptoms had gone away until Richie had backtracked like that. He reaches down, massaging at his calf as the cramp spreads up his leg like a poison. “It’s - ah - fine.”

Richie’s not stupid like his friends used to think. He  _ knows  _ why Eddie has to sit down, why the cramp is invading his body. It’s not hard to figure out. Eddie was fine until Richie called him  _ Eddie _ . Richie takes a seat next to him, grabs Eddie’s leg, and swings it onto his lap, stretching it out for him in the way he’d had to learn how to stretch out his own cramps. Eddie twists his body to sit more comfortably, so he’s staring at Richie’s profile, and he needs - no  _ wants _ \- to test something, though he’s not sure how to ask. 

Richie tilts his head towards Eddie, lifting a curious brow. “What?”

Eddie feels the pain that’s creeping into his chest. He hates this sickness, and he hates that he’s even considering testing this theory when they barely know each other anymore. “You trust me right?”

Richie seems confused by his question, brow furrowing. “Duh. Trust you with my life Eds.”

The name sparks something in Eddie, something he can feel pushing back at the sickness, trying to banish it from his body. “I have an idea I want to test - to see if Bev was right.”

Understanding settles onto Richie’s face. It makes him nervous again, but he trusts Eddie, so he doesn’t move when Eddie leans in and brushes his lips against Richie’s. It’s like someone has slammed Eddie with a defibrillator and the pain in his chest fades, makes it easier to breathe, and he can already feel the way the cramp starts to fade when Richie kisses back eagerly. Richie leans forward, moving Eddie’s other leg to one side so he can settle between them, never once parting from him. Eddie feels the healthiest he’s ever been, none of his symptoms creeping into him. Nothing’s ever felt so right to him before. He pushes back at Richie, curling his legs around the other man’s waist and his arms around his neck, flipping them over with ease.

Richie doesn’t fight it. There’s something exhilarating in having someone else take control for once. Eddie’s hands are in Richie’s shirt, nails nicking at his skin. Richie clutches the back of Eddie’s shirt, holds the blonde like he’s a lifeline, and right now it feels like he is. The nausea that had been building up had snapped away, and anywhere Eddie touches feel like it’s sending an electrical pulses through him, almost like a static charge. Richie can’t get enough of it as Eddie’s fingers thread through his own against the pillow, the cool metal of the band on Eddie’s finger freezing through the heat that’s pounding through his body.

He forces his mouth from Eddie’s, staring up at confused greens. “You have a wife.”

Eddie’s eye flit to the golden band. “Had. I just didn’t get around to taking it off.”

Richie’s fingers play with the band, removing it from Eddie’s finger which leaves only an indent where it once rested. Eddie takes the ring, stares at it for a moment, and then tosses it somewhere into the room before he’s diving back in. Richie has no issues this time, more than happy to let Eddie continue practically breathing life into him. They could die tomorrow, they’re both aware of that, and they waste no time in making sure that they have at least this night.

With Eddie buried deep inside him, Richie has never felt more alive. The static electrical pulse has faded for the most part, but Richie can still feel it tingling through his body. Richie finally understands the magnet analogy from Beverly’s theory now. Eddie is not a missing piece fitting into place. Eddie is an extension of him; his own whole piece that fits  _ with  _ him and not  _ to _ him. Every shift of Eddie’s hips sends an electrical wave crashing over him, draws a moan or a whine from Richie because nothing has ever felt this good and never will as far as Richie is concerned.

Eddie likes the soft whines. They’re a foreign noise because he’s never taken his time like this before. He’s never appreciated the way a body responds to him the way he does with Richie. He drinks it all in from the heave of Richie’s chest to the flush on his skin and even the slight twitch or tighten of the leg curled around his waist. And when he finally pushes Richie into that sated place his body craves, Eddie allows himself to appreciate pleasured glaze of Richie’s eyes. He lets it sink in that for the first time, his symptoms aren’t returning as he comes down from the high because this is where he should have been the whole time. 

Eddie wakes up to Richie sleeping with his head pressed against his chest. They’re completely touching, legs tangled together under the covers. He remembers the post-coital conversation they had, the conversation about how Eddie  _ doesn’t _ have a plan for after this battle. He’d thrown everything into a car and just left. He remembers the most clearly that Richie had asked him to go back to L.A with him. Eddie doesn’t want to go anywhere else. He wants to go with Richie, wants to catch up on every single year they’ve missed. He wants to stay in this moment longer, but he knows they can’t. They have unfinished business to take care of.

When they meet up with the others, Eddie notices that Beverly looks healthier and Ben isn’t coughing, the two of them walking side by side with their hands linked together, Beverly’s fingers pressing gently against the back of Ben’s hand. Beverly looks at him, gives him a once over, a knowing smile coming to her face. Eddie curls his arm around Richie’s as they walk, fingers slowly stroking down the inside of Richie’s wrist and across the palm of his hand. He’s testing the waters, and Richie glances to him, watching him like a hawk. Eddie watches him just as intensely, slowly slipping his fingers through Richie’s own. Richie doesn’t pull back, giving Eddie’s hand a squeeze.

They don’t have time to worry about what anyone else might think, and honestly they don’t care. Beverly giggles behind them and Eddie glances back at over his shoulder to see her grinning at them. Ahead of them he can hear Bill, Mike, and Stan talking quietly, trying to come up with a plan for what they’re about to do.

Eddie doesn’t remember much about the actual battle. He remembers the seven of them entering the sewers. He remembers sticking his right arm down that creature’s damn throat for even  _ daring  _ to try and hurt Richie. He remembers Bill pulling him back right as Pennywise clamped its mouth down, tearing off about half of his lower arm in the process. He remembers the creature going for Bill who was standing directly between the two of them after shoving Eddie in Richie’s direction, and he remembers Bill  _ dying _ . What he  _ doesn’t _ remember was how they finally killed IT. The last thing he can recall is Richie pulling him back from the creature and Beverly loading a slingshot with something.

The hospital thinks Eddie was in a crash, that he lost his arm when Mike had pulled him from the wreck. It’s believable considering killing Pennywise had just taken out the whole of fucking Main Street, Richie’s car included. They have an entire alibi that can’t be disproven unless someone decides to try and find the rest of Eddie’s arm which is now buried under the collapsed sewer with a giant alien spider and Bill’s corpse.

Eddie has been in the hospital for about a week now. They’ve fitted him with a robotic prosthetic and he hates it. He hates it because he can’t feel anything with it, but it’s also kind of awesome. It reminds him that he survived, that it could have been worse, and when Richie makes a sex joke about it, it hurts when Eddie slaps him and shuts him up while he nurses his slapped shoulder. Not even the soft fake flesh covering it can soften the blow. It’s connected to his nerves and takes  _ forever  _ to get used to and figure out how to control, but once he gets the basics down they finally let him leave.

Eddie’s never been more glad of anything. He hates the hospital. He ungracefully signs his name onto his discharge papers, still not fully used to using his new hand. Richie carries his bag to the car, walking on Eddie’s left side so he can thread their fingers together. It’s not that he hates Eddie’s other hand, he just doesn’t want his bones crushed while Eddie is still getting used to it. The others were gone by now, unable to stay any longer. They stop by Mike’s to say their goodbyes, stay with him one final night in Derry.

Richie drives the next day, reaching over for Eddie’s hand and threading their fingers together as they cross the town line. Eddie can feel the fog setting into his brain. It doesn’t take his friends from him this time. It doesn’t take  _ Richie  _ from him, but he can’t remember the name of the clown or what it’s real form looks like. Just that it killed Bill and could have killed him. By the time they’re at the airport, he can’t even remember the actual clown. He no longer feels the sickness that made most of his life a living hell. He’s drawn to Richie as they take their seats on the plane like a magnet, curling into his side and resting his head on his shoulder. Richie raises a hand and runs it through the soft blonde hair.

For the first time since they were kids, Eddie feels at ease.


End file.
